Use of beneficial bacteria and their secondary metabolites to control grapevine pathogen diseases

Grapevine is one of the most important economic crops yielding berries, wine products as well as derivates. However, due to the large array of pathogens inducing diseases on this plant, considerable amounts of pesticides—with possible negative impact on the environment and health—have been used and are currently used in viticulture. To avoid negative impacts of such products and to ensure product quality, a substantial fraction of pesticides needs to be replaced in the near future. One solution can be related to the use of beneficial bacteria inhabiting the rhizo- and/or the endosphere of plants. These biocontrol bacteria and their secondary metabolites can reduce directly or indirectly pathogen diseases by affecting pathogen performance by antibiosis, competition for niches and nutrients, interference with pathogen signaling or by stimulation of host plant defenses. Due to the large demand for biocontrol of grapevine diseases, such biopesticides, their modes of actions and putative consequences of their uses need to be described. Moreover, the current knowledge on new strains from the rhizo- and endosphere and their metabolites that can be used on grapevine plants to counteract pathogen attack needs to be discussed. This is in particular with regard to the control of root rot, grey mould, trunk diseases, powdery and downy mildews, pierce’s disease, grapevine yellows as well as crown gall. Future prospects on specific beneficial microbes and their secondary metabolites that can be used as elicitors of plant defenses and/or as biocontrol agents with potential use in a more sustainable viticulture will be further discussed

Enhanced Botrytis cinerea resistance of Arabidopsis plants grown in compost may be explained by increased expression of defense-related genes, as revealed by microarray analysis

Composts are the products obtained after the aerobic degradation of different types of organic matter waste and can be used as substrates or substrate/soil amendments for plant cultivation. There is a small but increasing number of reports that suggest that foliar diseases may be reduced when using compost, rather than standard substrates, as growing medium. The purpose of this study was to examine the gene expression alteration produced by the compost to gain knowledge of the mechanisms involved in compost-induced systemic resistance. A compost from olive marc and olive tree leaves was able to induce resistance against Botrytis cinerea in Arabidopsis, unlike the standard substrate, perlite. Microarray analyses revealed that 178 genes were differently expressed, with a fold change cut-off of 1, of which 155 were up-regulated and 23 were down-regulated in compost-grown, as against perlite-grown plants. A functional enrichment study of up-regulated genes revealed that 38 Gene Ontology terms were significantly enriched. Response to stress, biotic stimulus, other organism, bacterium, fungus, chemical and abiotic stimulus, SA and ABA stimulus, oxidative stress, water, temperature and cold were significantly enriched, as were immune and defense responses, systemic acquired resistance, secondary metabolic process and oxireductase activity. Interestingly, PR1 expression, which was equally enhanced by growing the plants in compost and by B. cinerea inoculation, was further boosted in compost-grown pathogen-inoculated plants. Compost triggered a plant response that shares similarities with both systemic acquired resistance and ABA-dependent/independent abiotic stress responses

A Naturally Associated Rhizobacterium of Arabidopsis thaliana Induces a Starvation-Like Transcriptional Response while Promoting Growth

Plant growth promotion by rhizobacteria is a known phenomenon but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We searched for plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria that are naturally associated with Arabidopsis thaliana to investigate the molecular mechanisms that are involved in plant growth-promotion. We isolated a Pseudomonas bacterium (Pseudomonas sp. G62) from roots of field-grown Arabidopsis plants that has not been described previously and analyzed its effect on plant growth, gene expression and the level of sugars and amino acids in the host plant. Inoculation with Pseudomonas sp. G62 promoted plant growth under various growth conditions. Microarray analysis revealed rapid changes in transcript levels of genes annotated to energy-, sugar- and cell wall metabolism in plants 6 h after root inoculation with P. sp. G62. The expression of several of these genes remained stable over weeks, but appeared differentially regulated in roots and shoots. The global gene expression profile observed after inoculation with P. sp. G62 showed a striking resemblance with previously described carbohydrate starvation experiments, although plants were not depleted from soluble sugars, and even showed a slight increase of the sucrose level in roots 5 weeks after inoculation. We suggest that the starvation-like transcriptional phenotype - while steady state sucrose levels are not reduced - is induced by a yet unknown signal from the bacterium that simulates sugar starvation. We discuss the potential effects of the sugar starvation signal on plant growth promotion